The Patna High Court has summoned the SHO and IO of Sahebganj police station in Muzaffarpur to be physically present before the court later this month in a 28-year-old dacoity case, which dragged due to alleged inaction by police.
Justice Satyavrat Verma gave the order while hearing the criminal miscellaneous petition filed by one Umashankar Singh alias Uma, 72, who is a resident of West Champaran.
The court asked these officials to explain why no action was taken after the warrant and attachment/seizure order was received from the court.
Umashankar Singh, a resident of Banuaramani Dilawarpur in East Champaran, was reported to be absconding since August 9, 1997. When the police initiated action against him, he filed a petition before the HC seeking anticipatory bail claiming that he was being implicated in a false case and had no knowledge of any case being instituted against him.
According to reports, local chowkidar Shatrughan Roy and Ramesh Mahto informed the then police officer of Sahebganj that a person named Gopal Tiwari was planning a robbery in Nayatola Dostpur locality with his associates. The police reached the spot after receiving the information. During the raid there, Rambabu Singh alias Vijay Singh was caught with a loaded rifle, while the rest of the accused fled.
Police said Umashankar Singh was among the accused. He was made a named accused. As he absconded, the police filed a petition in the court against him and obtained a warrant. After that, an advertisement was also issued and an attachment order was obtained from the court in 2007. Yet, the police did not initiate any action in the case.
The APP, based on the instruction of the SHO and the IO, also submitted the bizarre turn of events, stating that the process under Section 82 CrPC was issued in the year 2001 and the process under Section 83 CrPC was issued in the year 2007, but the petitioner (Singh) remained unrepresented and his anticipatory bail was rejected.
The petitioner pleaded that had processes been executed, he would have surrendered way back in 2007 itself. What is more, though Singh was named in the FIR, his father’s name and complete address were missing, reflecting the mechanical manner in which the police acted.
Singh’s counsel mentioned that in the FIR, vaguely mentioned the police station as Kesariya without naming the district while the petitioner is a resident of Kalyanpur PS in East Champaran. It is asserted and submitted that process under Sections 82 and 83 CrPC was never executed. It is also submitted that petitioner is 72 years of age and is a person with clean antecedents and in these 28 years police never made any endeavours to arrest him. Had the process under Section 83 CrPC been executed, the police would have seized household articles, but the same was not done.
